If you (or anyone) run across a flagged comment that isn't tediously repeating ideological battle tropes, pushing discussion flameward, or otherwise breaking the site guidelines, you're welcome to bring it to our attention. So far, the flagged comments I've seen in this thread seem correctly flagged. But we don't see everything.
On this site, we're trying for discussion in which people don't just bash each other with pre-existing talking points (and unprocessed rage). Such comments quickly flood the thread on a divisive topic like this one, so flagging them is essential to having HN operate as intended. To the extent possible at least.
(oh and btw, though it ought to go without saying, this has to do with the type of comment, not the view it's expressing. People should be able to make their substantive points thoughtfully, without getting flagged.)
Flagging isn’t the worst that can happen, you could also be rate limited what prevents you from answering in a discussion because of „you are posting too fast“
I know what I‘m talking about
Yes, when accounts have a pattern of posting too many unsubstantive and/or flamewar comments, we sometimes rate limit them.
We're happy to take the rate limit off once the account has built up a track record of using HN as intended.
What exactly is meant by track record?
Recent comments.
Yeah but in practice this isn't actually the case, people flag all the time for people just having a dissenting opinion, fitting none of the categories you mentioned
As mentioned, I haven't seen cases of that in the current thread. If there are any, I'd appreciate links. We don't see everything.
Looking at the flagged comments throughout this thread, perhaps https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45354759 is the closest to being flag-killed for a different opinion.
That one is arguably borderline—on the one hand, it makes large statements about a divisive topic without adding much information, but on the other hand it isn't snarky, name-calling, etc. I've turned off the flags.
There's one comment literally spreading misinformation and it isn't flagged, but instead got pushback by others, critically pointing the weakness of their arguments.